9mm luger-Berry's

[franklin73]

I'm using Berry's 115 Grain Flat nose copper plated bullets. I'm using 4grains of TITIGROUP.
When I use the micrometer to measure TOTAL OVERALL LENGTH I get 1.155, which is the measurement I've been finding as an average. I have not been able to find a Minimum or maximum overall length. If this is the correct T.O.L. it doesn't seem like much of the bullet is even inside the casing. Is this a problem or am I over thinking it since I'm a rookie? I'll take all the data and help I can get for safety reasons.

[Ranch Dog]

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to go with the SAAMI spec for starters. Now that their drawings are available online, not much sense in not downloading those that you shoot.



So the limits are a max of 1.169" and a minimum of 1.000". Since I have been reloading I have heard this rule of thumb; when in doubt, I use a minimum seating depth that is at least equal to the half the bullet diameter of the bullet for pistols and a full diameter of the bullet for rifles.

The maximum case length is .754", the minimum is .744" (-.010" as identified in the spec). The Berry's Bullet has a diameter of .356" so if there isn't any other recommendation, I would seat it in the case half of that: .178". You did not say how long the Berry bullet is but the cartridge OAL would equal bullet length minus .178" plus .754" for an estimated starting point. Next, I would make one dummy cartridge and make sure it would cycle into the chamber from slide release.

Well looky here; a quick Google search returned this sheet that Barry's publishes: Barry's Bullets COL

The 9mm Luger 115-grain FN bullet is .500" long and they recommend a COAL of 1.060" so the bullet is seated .194". That is pretty close to my old rule of

[Ranch Dog]

Just for grins, I made a Berry's bullet file in QuickLoad, it wasn't available, and ran the data for 4.0-grains of Titegroup. The velocity is for the 3.25" barrel of my Taurus PT111 Pro. It should generate 1022 FPS at 29.0K PSI.